


The Path of Yeast Resistance

by eclectickathy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bread, Cooking, Curry, Friendship, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Indian Harry Potter, Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Terrible Cooks, Therapy, Trauma, and they were ROOMMATES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23483635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclectickathy/pseuds/eclectickathy
Summary: Harry Potter doesn't cook.Draco Malfoy can't.A story of unlikely friends, family dinners, and BREAD.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, don't yell at me, but I've been working on this awhile. IF people are interested I'll post some more, I have around 7000 words ready. <3 
> 
> \- ks
> 
> Edited 12:20 PM 6 April 2020 for verb tenses

Draco wouldn't have said he was excited to return to Hogwarts, but he was glad he dragged Pansy with him.

After a summer spent almost entirely alone, he was ready to have an actual conversation with his friends, to see how they were really doing outside of the letters they sent embossed with their initials. Still, when the letter finally arrived to announce his official return to the school, Draco felt sick.

Mr. Draco Malfoy,

Due to new housing and patterns in returning students, your accommodations will be both mixed-gender and mixed-house. Slytherin only has two returning students for their eighth year, yourself and Ms. Pansy Parkinson, while many of the other houses have many more. As such, your housing, and Ms. Parkinson's, will be alongside overflow Gryffindor students. You have been placed with Ms. Parkinson in the West Tower suite with five others. Please contact us by way of owl if any questions arise before your arrival on the 18th August.

I hope this development will serve to inspire inter-house cooperation and tolerance.

Regards,

Headmaster Minerva McGonagall, Order of Merlin First Class

Attached on a small slip of parchment were the names of his new roommates, the last sick joke McGonagall must have orchestrated.

Draco Malfoy, _West Tower Room 303_

Pansy Parkinson, _West Tower Room 302_

Seamus Finnigan, _West Tower Room 301_

Dean Thomas, _West Tower Room 301_

Ronald Weasley, _West Tower Room 301_

Hermione Granger, _West Tower Room 302_

Harry Potter, _West Tower Room 303_

Draco Malfoy was well and truly _fucked_.

_____________________

The first thing Draco noticed about his new suitemates as he eyed them warily across the Great Hall was how infuriatingly different they looked— _especially_ his roommates. Granger carried herself; differently, sleeves rolled up with the new scars Draco still couldn't bear to look at. Weasley had chopped his hair, cropped and neat above his ears with confidence pulled from beneath his chin. Pansy had cut hers as well, a blunt bob with straight bangs she cheerfully called the 'trauma chop,' and finally gotten the glasses she so badly needed. Everything was strange, familiar, and _wrong_ all at once. The violence had dropped from the air, buried under the castle and between the stitches of their fresh-pressed robes.

And then there was _Potter_ , of course.

On the occasions he had spared Potter a thought over the summer, Draco had always pictured him with his short hair, bangs hiding his scar, still just a tad too short to be pushed out of his eyes. But Potter hadn't cut it, after all, no—he had let it grow out, just brushing his shoulders. He had gained weight, lost the gaunt dip in his cheeks and sharp shoulders, and with it, _somehow_ , the same glasses he had worn for years looked _fine_. Almost good. Draco could accept the word 'healthy' as a descriptor for Potter. Sure.

Meanwhile, little had changed about himself.

House arrest didn't lend itself to studying in the way it was supposed to in his head. His mother hadn't let him forget that he should be eating more, doing more, but he had just ended up curled in the library or deep in the garden, trying to ignore the events that had ruined his childhood home. The only time spent away was at Hogwarts, eight hours four times a week, spelling away the ruin and rebuilding the castle from the ground up. If anything changed, no one would see it. Same man, same scars, same fucking tattoo—he couldn't imagine that the same wouldn't hold true for Potter.

However, the summer's unexpected _lack_ of Potter had puzzled him. He had been prepared to suffer his presence, an encore of his nobility and heroism, for months after the war was ended, but for the first few months, he and the rest of the Golden Trio were utterly absent—even from the news. There were speculative pieces, of course, reports that Potter had run off with Granger into the Forest of Dean to begin a new life—that he was committed to Mungo's after spell damage from the war, never to be seen again—the usual dribble printed by the Daily Prophet.

By July, Weasley and Granger had resurfaced, Granger in the chambers of the Ministry, advocating for charities and programs for those affected by the war with varying degrees of success, and Weasley with his brother in their novelty shop in Diagon Alley. Witch Weekly covered one of their dates in muggle London, the front page an ugly stolen photo of Granger in a very tasteful dress. Potter's location, however, remained a mystery.

Which just wouldn't do.

Of all the wizarding world's celebrities, the Boy Who Lived Twice was unprecedented. But what else could they have expected from a man who rose from the dead? Merlin, who hopped right back up and defeated the Dark Lord? If you believed the news, there was no wizard more desirable for your trial, charity, or gala on the planet, and it was almost impossible to disagree.

It was when people didn't believe the news, however, that things went batty. 

Some insisted he _had_ died in the Battle of Hogwarts, that his survival was a cover-up by the Ministry. There were whispers that he had been committed to the Janus Thickey ward in Mungo's, spurring rogue groups of young witches to try and force their way into the hospital. The rumors were everywhere—Potter was already in Auror training, or he adopted his orphaned cousin, Edward, and moved to America.

Draco half-hoped he'd appear at the trials. Still, instead, his testimony was delivered in written form, with all of the Wizengamot members accepting the notion in a unanimous vote just before the first of the trials began. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't what he expected. Potter hadn't even sounded like he hated him, which Draco knew had to have been difficult, but he couldn't shake the air of irritation at the lack of his appearance, as if he was too good for it—as if he knew they would follow his advice blindly, and they did.

Hence, the return to Hogwarts, as required by the Wizengamot.

Then came 31st August, when Potter stepped onto Platform 9 ¾ a day early, all smiles at the reporters vying for an exposé, who snapped photos and sputtered questions while shoving through the crowd. Draco assumed someone had finally taught him proper conduct, as he watched Potter turn to wave at a reporter on the front of the Prophet. There was no clear explanation, no interview, just the photos and McGonagall's declaration at the welcome feast that the eighth years would be "expected to protect one another's privacy," before dismissing them before the rest of the school.

No prefects lead the way up to the West tower; instead, the pathetic exodus was just a shuffling of feet, the Golden Trio way in the front, whispering to one another in the flickering light of the torches.

________________________________________

The suite was more comfortable than he had thought it would be, and the colors more neutral. There was a large sitting area inside on the right, spilling over to the area in front of the kitchen ahead on the left. Stools sat at the island, posed for a lazy breakfast or midday snack, all still empty when Draco climbed to the tower. He had been hoping to beat his suitemates here by taking an old secret passageway through the kitchens. Most of them stopped at the base of the tower to visit with friends, but he suspected Pansy would be up soon. He had failed to answer her last letter, and there was no telling the price she would demand the injustice.

The room numbers were gilded on the dark wood doors, the names of their occupants scrawled underneath in small, neat script. As he located room 303 in the back, left-most corner, he found the door already cracked open, and music spilling out quietly from the inside. He stood frozen for a minute, indecisive, but it _was_ his room too, so he finally raised a reluctant hand to knock on the door, pushing it open. Potter turned from his trunk at the foot of the bed on the left, taking a sudden step back.

"Oh," he said. "It's you."

"Oh, is it?" Draco said, taking his shrunken luggage out of his pocket just for something to do. "Thanks for letting me know."

Draco set his miniature bags on the floor, pointing his wand at them spitefully and shoving his trunk against the foot of the free bed, closest to the door. He would have preferred the other if he had a choice, and he bet that if he asked him, the great fumbling Gryffindor would switch with him out of duty—not that he would ask— he wasn't planning on talking with Potter any more than absolutely necessary. When he glanced up, Harry's face had fallen, shoulders suddenly jerking to the side to fuss with something on his desk. Draco glanced at the top of Harry's dresser, which was already a mess, a scattering of personal effects and potions supplies. He frowned, thinking of his own potions kit in his bag, untouched and ready for the new year. _The last thing I need is to be paired with him again. I might as well switch to remedial now._

"Are you taking potions again this year?" Draco asked, feigning nonchalance.

Harry startled, giving his dresser a fleeting glance and wrinkling the paper in his hands. "I—uh—yeah."

Draco rolled his eyes and opened his trunk, gingerly laying out his robes and clothing on the bed in neat stacks. "I wasn't aware the Aurors required a potions NEWT for recruits," he said, and then quieter: "Especially from Harry Potter."

He steeled himself against the lash back, ready to fall into the old patterns from past years, prickly and comfortable in their familiarity. Still, Harry simply turned, standing stick-straight and stupid, mumbling something along the lines of "Oh, well. You know."

Draco chewed at the inside of his cheek, taking a deep breath through his nose _. Is this some kind of 'kill them with kindness' fuckery? What's he studying to be? The Minister of Magic?_

When he opened the closet, he picked the left side to hang his robes, taking out a fistful of hangers to use for the clothes on his bed. When he turned, he almost smacked into Harry, who had an armful of things to take into the bathroom. 

"Sorry," Harry said awkwardly. 

Draco nodded, waited to hear the click of the bathroom door, dropped the hangers onto his bed, and ran off to find Pansy. 

________________________________________

Generally, Draco's plan was to avoid his roommates until it felt normal. He would establish his space, his chair in the living area where he currently sat, reviewing the first passage of his Advanced Potions book, and fade into the background in a few short weeks. _Excuse me for wanting some bloody normalcy. Never should have expected that from the Gryffindors._ Draco knows he should have expected these kinds of sit-downs when he learned who his roommates would be, but that didn't stop him from wanting to run when Seamus stumbled out into the common area and shouted "Family meeting!" 

"Here's the deal," Hermione said. "We may not all be friends, but we have one thing in common: we're sort-of famous." She spared a glance at Harry and pursed her lips. "Some more than others."

"What's your point, Granger?"

"McGonagall gave us a kitchen for a reason—she told me before the start of term—she wanted to give us a chance not to be swarmed in the Great Hall. The—" she paused and sighed for a moment. "The house-elves will deliver us ingredients if we keep a list."

"Why can't the house-elves just deliver our meals up here?" Seamus said.

Hermione frowned. "In a year we'll have to cook for ourselves, you might as well start learning now," she said. "Well, most of us, anyway."

Seamus grinned, trying to catch the eye of someone else in the group and failing. "Shouldn't we just enjoy it while it lasts, then?"

Hermione glowered at him, and Seamus's brows raised, but he fell quiet.

"Okay," Ron said awkwardly. "I'm a bit rubbish, but I can make the basics."

"I'll pitch in," said Hermione.

Pansy frowned. "Guess it's time I put my womanly domestic skills to good use."

Hermione hummed and glanced at Seamus and Dean, who shrugged, and then at Draco, who simply avoided her eyes. Harry huffed a sigh and leaned back in his chair.

"Well then it's settled, I suppose." Hermione reached into her bag and took a small handful of multicolored pens and a scrap of parchment. "I'll take Thursdays since I don't have class past three."

"I'll have Tuesday," Dean replied.

"I don't want to be on the cooking rota," said Harry. Draco's eyes flicked over, catching Harry ducking his head and pressing his hands into his lap.

Hermione blinked twice at him and pursed her lips, nodding. "You'll be on clean-up twice a week. I'll take your slot."

"Afraid your cooking won't be up to snuff?" asked Seamus. "I hate cleaning; I would rather cook twice."

"As your room shows," said Draco. Seamus scoffed and shot an accusatory look at Harry, who shrugged.

"I don't cook," he said.

"But you could learn," said Seamus.

"He doesn't _cook_ ," said Ron defensively.

Harry lifted a hand to Ron's shoulder, smiling grimly. "Alright, Ron."

Ron mumbled something under his breath, prickling like an owl delivering spam mail, and Hermione stared at them for a moment with wide eyes before sighing.

"Is anyone opposed? Anyone at all?" she asked. 

Suddenly, no one's looking at him; and they were much more interested in their feet, or the fireplace, or Draco's open copy of _Advanced Potioneering & You! A Guide to Bubbling, Troubling, and Boiling Your Way to Betterment! _still lying facedown on the armchair. He feels a spike of adrenaline curling in his chest, and suddenly, he wants to hide behind the curtains back in the bedroom. 

"No," he said loudly. "That all sounds absolutely fine." 


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the encouragement! I hope you enjoy the chapter, hopefully no one is too OOC! 
> 
> All my love, 
> 
> ks

The most important development in the suite for Harry turned out to be not Malfoy, but dinner. At McGonagall’s suggestion, eating outside the Great Hall was a pleasant break from the swarm that always zeroed in on him and the others. Sometimes Seamus, Dean, and Pansy slipped out to sit at their respective house tables. Still, it was usually the five or six of them together. 

Pansy proved to be much more—not _pleasant_ , that definitely wasn’t the word— but bearable, than Harry expected. She had cornered him a few days in and half-shouted a maybe-sort-of apology in his face. It wasn’t too bad, and she seemed to get on with Hermione at the very least. When they weren’t bitching about the new Arithmancy professor, she pretty much kept to herself or spoke with Draco. 

Speaking of Draco, he didn’t attend dinners. He usually took a plate, but he sure as hell didn’t sit at the table, or in he and Harry’s room—he slipped out under their noses and left Harry sneaking the Marauder’s Map to dinner to track his climb to the Astronomy tower. 

On the first week, Harry assumed that he was up to something, (a hard habit to break). On the second, he started to worry that he would jump off or something equally daft, which made Harry feel a lot of emotions that were really just too confusing to voice at the present moment. By the third—well. He was situated comfortably between worried, guilty, and annoyed. He briefly acknowledged that he should probably be used to that by now, but what could he do? 

The thing is, it’s not like he could try to express how much he actually wanted Draco to be at dinner. Harry knew full well that his insistence on ‘family’ dinners was at best, strange, and at the worst: pathetic. No doubt that Draco would think the latter. 

But Harry knew that Pansy would appreciate him being there, and in a way, everyone else would too— perhaps for more selfish reasons. 

Draco was a _terrible_ cook, and no one had been able to track him down to tell him. By the time Harry woke in the morning, Draco was gone, and when he went to bed, he was already asleep—or at least, his curtains were closed. He’s beginning to suspect that Draco let him follow him 6th year too because if Harry dares to try and find him, he’s on the move the moment Harry enters the room. Even with the map—it’s tricky to track him around the castle. But by the second Wednesday Draco cooks, he decides he’d rather tackle the trigger points of the Astronomy tower than eat another bowl of his godforsaken overboiled and gummy noodles. 

“You’re a terrible chef,” Harry said, pointedly ignoring that this was where he watched Dumbledore die.

Draco nearly upset the plate he was eating from, his fork clattering on the edge as he startled. “Potter,” he said abruptly. “I gather you’re not too attached to the china, then.” 

“Yeah, well,” he said, stupidly, because how the _fuck_ was, he meant to treat Draco now, anyway? If they weren’t nemeses, what were they? It seemed ridiculous that the two of them could just be called ‘classmates.’ 

“Is that all? Don’t want to call me out for leaving my bed unmade?”

“Uh,” said Harry, glancing back at the top of the stairs. “Actually…” _Actually, I’m a dumbass, why would I track him down? He probably thinks I’m about to shove him off the tower._

Draco set his dishes aside and frowned, standing and crossing his arms. “If you’re about to accuse me of being up to—” 

“I wanted to invite you to dinner,” Harry said suddenly. “Uh—well, we all sit down together, usually. Around 6?” _Boy, wouldn’t it be great to not be here?_

“I need an invitation to eat at my own table, then?” 

“No?”

Draco hid a smirk and glanced away, eyes on the ground. “Pansy told me she’d been tolerating you.”

“Then, you don’t want to come?” Harry asked. “I just— er—I need to know how many plates to set.” 

“I don’t know if I feel like watching you chew with your mouth open while I’m trying to eat.” 

Harry took a slow breath. “I have great manners, thanks.” 

Draco rolled his eyes. “Was that all?” 

“Yeah, I just—” Harry frowned, fidgeting with the hair tie on his wrist. “I wanted to make sure you knew that you _are_ invited. If that makes sense.” 

Draco’s eyes scanned his face, incredulous, and unreadable. Harry held his breath, the early evening breeze raising goosebumps on his arms. Draco frowned.

“Yes, yes, you’re very chivalrous, thank you. I’ll come to dinner if you stop it with all the—” Draco waved his hand through the air in Harry’s general direction. “ _Emotion_.”

Warmth spread through Harry’s chest and onto his cheeks as he exhaled, breaking into a grin. “Great.” 

Draco took his dishes and set them resolutely in his lap, turning away from Harry pointedly in favor of staring over the edge of the tower. Harry shifted his weight between his feet and pulled his cardigan tighter around his body, biting his lip against his sentimentality. “Draco,” he said the word cotton in his mouth.

Draco turned, his eyes wide. “Potter?” 

Harry looked away, staring at the vague shape of the lake in the distance. “I don’t really mind being your roommate, you know.” 

Draco swallowed, his lips pressed into a line and shoulders tight. _Fuck, and we were being civil._

“So, you don’t have to—I don’t know, avoid me?” 

He waited for Draco to deny it, to rattle off some excuse about studying away from his fictitious snoring, or mock him for paying attention, but he simply ducked his head, frowning at his dishware. Harry stumbled over a breath, the wind creaking through the rafters, blowing leaves across the courtyard below in waves. 

“Is this going to be okay, then?” Harry asked after the silence stretched too long between them. 

“Yes,” said Draco reluctantly. “I suppose it might.”

___________________________________________

Sure, Draco had said he was coming to dinner, but finding him sitting at the table as Hermione brought her lasagna out of the oven was a completely different story. Her hair was frizzy and pulled out of her face haphazardly, three hours of Advanced Potions weighing on her. It was sickeningly domestic, and it reminded him of the few good days they spent in Grimmauld Place before everything had gone to shit. She had looked the same, frustrated after her first casserole got the better of her. She was a good cook now, never one to let things get the better of her. 

Harry took his regular seat at the head of the table opposite Hermione—usually next to Dean, and now next to Draco. _Could proximity set him over the edge? Because I saw a lot of him yesterday, compared to usual._ Draco half-hid a glance at him over his water glass, his eyes questioning. Harry took a deep breath. _It’ll be fine,_ he thought _. Pansy’s been all but fucking cordial, I can’t imagine Draco wouldn’t do the same._ And it was. Fine, that is. 

Draco was polite but quiet, and though his chair was shoved so close to Pansy’s that they kept bumping elbows when she tried to cut her noodles into bite-sized pieces. Hermione was in a rare state, talking excitedly with Pansy about the three feet of parchment Slughorn had assigned for their next class. Seamus nodded along as Dean and Ron obsessed over the draft to Puddlemere United, and Harry spent most of the dinner trying desperately not to look at Draco for too long. 

“Three feet!” Hermione exclaimed. “In a day! What is he playing at? It’s like he’s forgotten we have other classes to attend to—not to mention our career meetings on Wednesday with McGonagall!” 

Pansy raised her eyebrows, her long fingernails tapping a rhythm on the side of her water glass. “Haven’t you heard about Ancient Runes yet?” 

Hermione’s eyes narrowed, and Harry ripped his napkin into pieces in his lap. “No, I haven’t. What’s Babbling done now?” 

Pansy grimaced. “Five feet for Friday on Icelandic staves.” 

Hermione frowned. “But, we’ve only gone over Gapaldur and Ginfaxi.” 

“Well, he assigned Luna and me Vegvisir, so I wouldn’t bet on getting either of those.” 

Harry couldn’t help but smile at the two of them getting on so well. He hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly, but though there wasn’t too much trust between them, he could see a real bond beginning to form. He stole a glance at Draco, who had already finished his plate and now sat quietly, listening to Hermione rage on over the lack of communication between professors at Hogwarts. 

“Have we been assigned partners yet for potions?” he said, once the conversation had lulled. 

Most of the table turned to look, even Ron tripping over his tangent about whether or not Wilda Griffiths should have retired so early. Hermione, per usual, was the first to compose herself, wrinkling her nose. 

“I’m afraid so. I’ve got Pansy, at least, though I prefer working alone.” 

“I’ll try not to take offense at that, darling,” Pansy muttered. 

Draco sighed. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this?” 

“About what?” Hermione asked, just as Pansy said, “About Potter?” 

Draco nodded, glancing at Harry and rolling his eyes. “I just know we’ll be working together. I feel it in my bones—it’s as if he cursed me to fail along with him.” 

“I won’t fail!” Harry said. “If anyone remembers, I did well once, in potions.” 

“By cheating,” Ron mumbled. 

“That’s beside the point,” Harry sputtered. “I learned a lot that semester.”

“We’ll see,” said Hermione. 

“We’ll see,” said Draco. 

______________________

Draco settled into the doughy blue armchair in the corner after dinner, the table thinning out after they had finished discussing their professors for the semester. He had work to do, and he could hear Dean and Seamus having what he could only assume was a pillow fight in the room next door. He could have cast a quiet charm, but he did want to claim his spot in the common room, as well as stop Harry from mentioning how desperately Draco was trying to avoid him. Still, he wasn’t getting much work done out here, either. 

Draco spent a good fifteen minutes watching Harry over the edge of his Potions book as he scrubbed at one of the pans from dinner. He wasn’t planning on saying anything, but the scene was just so _stupid_ he couldn’t help it. “Are you trying to wear a hole in the pan, or do you just like washing up that much?” 

Harry flinched and glanced over his shoulder. “The pan just won’t get clean, but I guess I could let it soak overnight,” he sighed, dejectedly, staring at the rest of the dishes still yet to be put away. “I hate doing the dishes, especially when my fingers get all— _wrinkly_.” 

Draco looked up from the same passage he had been trying to read since dinner and stared at the back of Harry’s head. “Potter—you’re a wizard. You could _spell_ the dishes clean.” 

“Oh,” Harry said. “I hadn’t thought of that.” 

“One might think you don’t think at all.” 

“Are you having a spat?” Pansy asked, walking into the kitchen with an empty glass to add to the small pile in the sink. 

“No,” Draco said. “I do no such thing.” 

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Darling, you’re more dramatic than I was when I thought I was into _boys_.” 

Harry made a sharp noise, something between a laugh and a cough as Pansy slid past him to put her glass on the counter. “You’re a mess,” she said. 

Draco frowned. “Actually, I’m doing great, thank you very much,” he said, closing his book. “Never been better.” 

“Is that so?” Pansy said. 

“It is so,” Draco said, frowning. He stood from his place in the corner, tucking his book under his arm and glancing over at Harry, who looked vastly uncomfortable. He shot a look at Draco that very clearly said _If you leave me here, I’ll hex your shoes so that they’re always wet,_ but Draco just grinned. 

“I’ll be off,” Draco said. 

Pansy nodded, her eyes glued to Harry. She stared at him until the click of the door echoed off the hardwood, and the faucet turned off.

“Tell me, are you trying to be his friend, _Harry_?” she said, the H hard a foreign on her tongue. It didn’t sound threatening, but curious, and as always, terrifying. She leaned back against the counter nonchalantly, as if these days they always had a pseudo-friendly chat after dinner. 

“I’m just trying to be his roommate,” said Harry. “Is that too much to ask?”

“Yes,” said Pansy. 

Harry rolled his eyes. “I just want to be civil, that’s all.” 

“And that stint at dinner? You’re the one who invited him.” 

Suddenly, Harry felt prickly and strange. _I’m not about to explain to you how much I just want to see everyone safe. Including him._ “What?” Harry mumbled. “I thought everyone had a nice time.” 

“We did,” Pansy said. 

“So, what’s the problem, exactly?” 

Pansy narrowed her eyes and stalked off to her room, slamming the door behind her. 


End file.
